Thursday, 10 September 2015

Santorini part 3 -A boat trip to the volcano, hot springs, Thirassia and sunset in Oia

Well, this post is up a bit later than I had hoped. But when I tell you this post consists of about a million photos, I’m sure you can understand the process of going through them all and editing. It was a long task and something I had to keep picking up and putting down, along with trying to get other posts sorted too. But anyway, here is the next part of my Santorini photobook, a day trip...

Whilst myself and James stayed at Perissa on the East coast of the island, we knew that we wanted to visit Oia at some point during the week to see the famous sunset (I think this was more for my benefit than his!) We had thought about the idea of possibly renting a car, or quads but when we saw a day excursion consisting of a boat trip to the volcano, hot springs, Thirassia and finishing off watching the sunset in Oia and then a bus back down the Island we knew this would be perfect. We paid 20euros each which was actually pretty cheap; other places were charging 38euros per person! So if you look to do this, look around. We had the same boat for the entire day with the same tour guides who were great. From where we were staying, we got the bus down to the port (about 30 mins) and set sail over to the port of Erinia which is the name of the small volcano bay, here you can follow the path to the top where active craters are. It was a bit of a walk in the heat, but it was worth it with incredible views and well worth doing. I think we were there for just over an hour and the tour guides gave a really detailed insight in to the history of the Island. From there we moved on to the island of Palea Kameni for the hot springs, the famous mud baths, which were formed as result of volcanic eruptions. In the small bay of Agios Nikolaos the water temperature ranges from 30 to 35 degrees Celsius, as it mixes continuously with the normal sea currents. It was about 50m to swim to the hot springs as the boat couldn’t get any further. We were actually one of the last ones off the boat so by the time we got there we had to swim back, so we didn’t get to experience this fully unfortunately! Because the water is very sulphuric, it did stain my black and white swimwear and I noticed a guy who had white shorts on now rocking a very sepia coloured pair! So bare this in mind if you go. We then headed to the Island of Thirassia, we had about 2 hours to chill here and seeing as it was now early afternoon it was the perfect place to have some lunch in one of the traditional taverns on the island. We decided to just stick by the bay, but you could go up to the village if you wanted. The waters here were SO clear, it was incredibly picturesque!

After lunch we got
some ice cream and walked around, and then it was time to get back on the boat
to set sail to Oia...

Approaching Oia was one of those moments I’ll never forget, it was just one of those situations where you’re just so happy and content you feel like you could burst. It was so nice to be sat on that boat with the sun blazing, next to my other half, without a care in the world. As we got closer and the famous cliff face came in to view we had some visitors... a swarm of dolphins! It all happened so quick, they were darting under the boat, switching sides and coming to the surface. I’ve never seen dolphins before so it was really lovely to see! Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos. But take it from me, it was awesome! The boat docked the port of Oia for the people getting off and we had two options of how to get to the top, walk or donkeys. We both decided that there was no way we’d get the Donkeys; it’s pretty cruel enough without us adding to the load, so we embarked on the mammoth trek to the top and believe me it was a trek. Climbing he steepest, widest steps in full blown heat was certainly a challenge but we did it. After getting my breathe back and drinking a gallon of water I finally stopped to take in the view. There really are no words to describe how beautiful Oia is, the photos don’t do it justice and it’s certainly one of those places you need to visit yourself just to appreciate it all!

We got to Oia about 4pm and our bus back was at 9pm so we had a good few hours. We walked around, looked in all the little shops and chilled out in a couple of bars. We made dinner reservations for a restaurant near the edge so we could see the sunset. In the end this ended up being a bit of a disaster. We knew it would be busy, that’s understandable but this was ridiculous. Although we had a table at the front of the restaurant people were literally stood right in front of us and even came in to the restaurant to watch the sunset! I just thought it was incredibly rude, although the staff were lovely and kept asking people to move it kinda spoilt it a bit. If I was to do it again I’d have stayed one night in Oia and had dinner/watched the sunset from the private of our own balcony. Another thing to mention is Oia is VERY expensive, nearly double the prices of what we’d been paying back in Perissa. We’d usually spend about 50euros on dinner and drinks a night but here we paid nearly 100euros so keep that in mind if you visit.

The sunset finished around 8:40pm so we had 20 mins to walk down to the
bus which we thought would be fine as we knew where the bus park was having
visited there as soon as we reached the top. But as we went to leave, so did
everyone else. We were like cattle walking up the narrow paths. Time was
ticking on and it really was touch and go as to whether we made the bus. I kid
you not when I say we literally just made it, the bus was pulling away as we
got to the door. It was manic down there, there were SO many buses. Looking
back now god knows what we would have done if we hadn’t of made it, we were out
of cash and no idea how to get back! But anyway, it was all ok in the end. By
the time we got back to where we were staying it was about 10pm, we decided to
head back to the hotel and have a drink on the balcony instead of going out as
we were knackered! Until that day we’d spent the whole holiday sitting on a
beach doing not very much! We both said how much we enjoyed the day trip and
feel like we did a lot. We’d gone away to relax so being a full blown tourist
was never going to happen, but this day made sure we got to see more of the
island and the history that is Santorini. I highly recommend it for anyone
thinking of going, well worth the pennies!

This looks gorgeous! I would so love to go to Greece with all it's pretty white houses. I've recently been travelling around the south of Italy and this reminds me of the little hilltop towns along the Amalfi Coast there!